Tasmanian Aboriginal land rights stalled on the road to reconciliation

This week celebrates the process of reconciliation between Tasmania's traditional owners of the land and the broader community. While significant land has been returned, and in a recent example purchased, the most recent efforts to transfer two significant sites via an amendment to the Aboriginal Lands Act has stalled with the change of state government earlier this year.

National Reconciliation Week is celebrated across Australia each year between the dates that commemorate two more significant milestones in the reconciliation between Indigenous Australia and the broader community.

27 May is the anniversary of the 1967 referendum that saw Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples recognised in the national census and afforded the rights as citizens of Australia.

On 3 June, 1992, the High Court of Australia delivered the Mabo decision recognised the relationship that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have to the land, paving the way for Native Title land rights.

Reconciliation Week is described on the organiser's website as the week when 'Australians can learn about our shared histories, cultures and achievements and to explore how each of us can join the national reconciliation effort'.

In Tasmania, the 1995 introduction of the Aboriginal Land Act provided for the establishment of an elected Aboriginal Land Council to own and manage lands of historical and cultural significance, the greatest gesture of reconciliation in law since colonial settlement.

Since then, the process of returning land of special significance to the traditional owners has been a gradual one.

Currently 55,606 hectares of land has been returned to the Aboriginal community, comprising 16 separate areas.

Ten parcels of land were returned in 1995, and since then Parliament has twice approved the transfer of further lands, in 1999 and 2005.

In 2012, the former state government successfully moved to amend the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Act(1995) to include the areas of Rebecca Creek, on Tasmania's West Coast, and larapuna*, on the East Coast.

The amendment to the legislation has since stalled in Tasmania's upper house, the Legislative Council.

The Premier Will Hodgman this week moved a motion in Parliament calling on all parties to unite and send a strong message of support for the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first Australians.

He said the 2014 theme for National Reconciliation Week, 'Let's walk the talk', reminds us that great achievements take courage and persistence, and that the next step forward in reconciliation is to complete the Australian Constitution by recognising the First Australians.

Significance

The two sites earmarked for return are on opposite sides of the state.

Rebecca Creek, several kilometres inland from Temma on the West Coast, is the richest Aboriginal stone working area known in Tasmania.

It is a source of spongolite which was used for the production of stone tools, and archaeological evidence shows it was traded by Aboriginals further than any other raw material in Tasmania.

larapuna is located in Tasmania's North East near Ansons Bay, and now houses the Eddystone Point Lighthouse and lighthouse keeper cottages.

The area was a rich hunting ground for fish, kangaroo and seals while the broader area contains middens, artefact sites and burial grounds.

While there is no part of Tasmania, apart from some outer lying islands, that Tasmanian Aboriginals did not regularly inhabit, the return of especially sensitive lands by successive governments is a recognition the cultural significance of land to the Aboriginal community, and an important step in the process of reconciliation.

The most recent land that has been acquired on behalf of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community was made possible through a combined purchase, rather than a transfer from the state.

Gowan Brae

Gowan Brae, a property of more than 6,000 hectares in the Central Highlands, was collaboratively purchased by Aboriginal groups, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy and the Australian Government.

It is the largest parcel of land acquired for Aboriginal people on mainland Tasmania, and contains quarry sites, evidence of long term habitation, and provides an opportunity for Tasmania's Aboriginal community to reconnect with culturally and environmentally important land.

The Chairman of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania Clyde Mansell described the purchase as a milestone for reconciliation in Tasmania.

The unique collaboration for the purchase means the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania is now the freehold owner of the land, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre is the reserve manager and the Tasmanian Land Conservancy will provide ongoing support and assistance to manage the property for its conservation values.

The long legislative road

The Liberal party in opposition supported the amendment's passage back in 2012, but new legislation will have to be presented before the Legislative Council can again consider it.

Any change to the amendments could mean the process of consultation may have to be taken all over again, with still no guarantee that it will pass in the final vote in the upper house.

Premier Will Hodgman has reiterated his government's support for the legislation that will complete the handing over of the two land returns.

"Due to the election, the passage of the Aboriginal Lands Amendment bill unfortunately lapsed before it was passed by the Legislative Council.

"The Liberal Government remains very supportive of the land handbacks at Rebecca Creek and larapuna - as we were when the bill unanimously passed the House of Assembly in 2012 - and we are currently working through the next steps for the legislation."

The process of reconciliation in Tasmania has matured with the combined purchase of Gowan Brae in 2012, as well as the adoption of a state government dual place naming policy during 2013.

While the process of adding larapuna and Rebecca Creek to the list of land transfers to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community has stalled, bipartisan support of Tasmania's commitment to reconciliation through land transfer means it may well occur in 2014.

*Tasmanian Aboriginal place names, such as larapuna, are not written with a capital letter in the language of palawa kani.